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ASRock Z68 Pro3

Phoronix: ASRock Z68 Pro3

We recently reviewed the ASRock H61M/U3S3 motherboard at Phoronix, which was a very nice Intel Sandy Bridge motherboard with integrated graphics for those on a limited budget. While the H61 is great on the low-end side, Intel recently introduced the Z68 chipset. The Z68 is designed to take the features of the P67 chipset and its tuning capabilities while enabling the integrated HD Graphics 3000 support. In this review, we are trying out the ASRock Z68 Pro3 motherboard.

Worth noting you need to get at least bios 1.50 for stable graphics under linux with this board. Older bios had the wrong/different default voltage setting for the GPU, which causes crashes when the power saving code was enabled in the kernel - more details here https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=38492

I just built a core i7 using the matx version of this board and placed an old hdd which already had ubuntu server installed. The machine boots into this ok. However, I wanted to install kubuntu 11.04 - promptly created a bootable USB key with unetbootin and kicked it off. Kubuntu seems to start up the plymouth screen, the dots flash across showing progress then the machine just shutsdown.

Unfortunately this mainboard has problems with dual boot setups using Linux besides Windows 7-x64, warmstarts result in networking problems. Whenever I boot into Windows, the NIC goes nuts in an "em1: link up" loop after rebooting into Linux, which makes it unusable. You always have to completely shutdown the system after using Windows, otherwise you will end up without reliable networking under Linux:

I was using 7.45.516.2011 and updated to 7.46.610.2011 form Realtek.com.tw right now but that didn't fix the problem.

If needed you can activate wol in the driver options - or disable if active.

That idea gave me hope, but with WoL deactivated in the Windows driver options, network-manager under Linux is no longer able to establish a connection with my router after a warm start (allthough ifconfig shows the NIC is present).

I would say, this is even worse, but one may argue it doesn't matter if the network is completely unreliable or doesn't work at all. Thanks for your input Kano, but I still believe AsRock should fix their UEFI and reset the RealteK NIC properly within reboot cycles.

BTW, I had an ASUS P8P67 with the same RTL8111E NIC before and no dual boot problems at all.

Unfortunately this mainboard has problems with dual boot setups using Linux besides Windows 7-x64, warmstarts result in networking problems. Whenever I boot into Windows, the NIC goes nuts in an "em1: link up" loop after rebooting into Linux, which makes it unusable. You always have to completely shutdown the system after using Windows, otherwise you will end up without reliable networking under Linux:

you need to use the driver from the vendor site, rather than the kernel one the in kernel 8169 doesn't work right.

Thank you, buzz! I didn't use the one you provided now, but the one in r8168-8.024.00.tar.bz2 from Realtek.com compiled and installed fine with Fedora kernel 2.6.38.8-35.fc15.x86_64. With this driver the problem is gone, so it provides a workaround for many dual boot installations.

On the other hand, I should not be forced to compile the vendors driver, as upstream drivers work fine as long as Windows is not involved in a reboot cycle. Using the Realtek driver also isn't an option with live media (like SysRescCD, Knoppix, or installation media e.g.) and as long as this mainboard (or the upstream kernel driver, fair enough...) doesn't properly reset the Realtek NIC on reboot, one always has to remember completely shutting down Windows before booting into any Linux with just the kernel driver availiable.

Now I don't know who finally is to blame, AsRock or kernel developers?

It's a kernel driver issue. there are reports from other boards on kernel bugzilla with similar problems.

I've read a lot of those bugreports when searching for a solution to my problem...

on kernels after .38 you get no connectivity at all. .38 sort of worked but disconnected constantly.

...but the symptoms were different to mine. For me the r8169 kernel driver always worked stable and without any problems when booting directly into Linux. With the AsRock Z68 Pro3 it now only worked reliable as long as Windows was not in between reboots, but besides that I have also nothing to complain. The ASUS P8P67 had no problems at all and that is why I still believe that there is something at least suboptimal within the AsRock UEFI.

I will send a short mail to AsRock again with a link to this discussion. Either they want to assist kernel developers, put some pressure on Realtek in doing so, fix their UEFI themselves or will again completely ignore my mail.